“Get dressed. I’ve called the ambulance as I think that’s better than me transporting her.”
I chewed on my lip as I pulled on a pair of leggings and a long tunic. I hurried down the hall, my head spinning, and burst into my mother’s room. It was light, airy, with sheer curtains at the large windows that overlooked the lake. Her large, balsawood bed had the sheers tied back. She lay huddled in the middle of them.
“Mum,” I cried, rushing toward her.
“Didn’t want to worry you, mon mignon,” Mum said, gasping and wheezing.
She seemed to shrink before my eyes. The wheezing grew louder. Her hand was cold, her fingers like frail, brittle twigs between my palms.
“You’ll be fine,” I said with a smile. “Everything will be fine. I love you.”
“Ah, ma petite belle. I love you too—to the moon and back again.”
“What is it? I asked.
“Heart…chest pains…” She began to cough, hacking grunts that shook her frame.
My whole body shook—maybe from the shock, I wasn’t sure. I’d been sitting here, in this spot, mere hours before, and my mother was fine. She’d laughed with me.
Moments later, the housekeeper, Mrs. Ombly, pushed open the solid pine door, admitting paramedics. I was shunted to the side as they spoke in their medical shorthand.
Mrs. Ombly drove me to the hospital. I sat at my mother’s bedside in the ICU. My mother’s nurse had disappeared some time ago, her face haggard, after saying she couldn’t do anything more.
Mrs. Ombly suggested I call my father, and that’s when I realized I didn’t have my phone. She promised to collect it and a change of clothes for me. I must have fallen asleep after she left, because the next time I woke, the machines were screaming and people rushed into the room, moving me out.
I waited in the hall outside my mother’s room as more medical personnel sprinted inside. But I didn’t need them to tell me what I’d seen in my mother’s eyes.
24
Nash
Aya still hadn’t responded to my messages, which was unlike her. And she hadn’t been home when I’d run here. Dark, clamorous instruments clashed in my head—a heavy, angry hiss of noise that flared with fear and worry.
The house was open, though, so I’d come in to wait for her. That’s when I found her phone in her room. I’d laid down on her bed and stared up at the ceiling, inhaling her scent. It had calmed me, and I’d sighed just before the sob caught me by surprise. Then I turned my head into her pillow and cried. My dad—Brad… He hated me.
All the while my phone had kept buzzing in my pocket. I ignored it as long as I could, but finally, I yanked it out in irritation. Pop Syad had called me fifty-three times.
He called me a fifty-fourth while I was checking, so I pressed the green button.
“What?” I snapped.
“I’m worried about you, my boy.”
“I’m fine.”
“No, Nash, you’re not. And it’s because of that…that…”
I rose from Aya’s bed and moved toward her dresser. My eyes traveled over her phone and the note I’d written her next to it, and then found her malas. My fingers wrapped around the beads, and I ran my thumb over the tassel, enjoying the tickling sensation across my skin. She’d taken them off to shower earlier, I remembered. She didn’t like the tassel to get wet.
Where is she? I should go check on her mother, make sure everything’s okay.
I shoved my hand into my pocket and moved back across Aya’s room.
“Your mother is a beautiful woman,” Pop Syad added after a moment. “So vivacious and full of life. But she needed a firm hand. Rules. Brad broke all the rules. He broke her.”
I headed toward Mrs. Didri-Aldringham’s room.
“Steve is in front of the Didri estate. Please join him, Nash. There is much I need to tell you.”
I huffed out a breath. “I don’t want to see him. Or you. I don’t want to talk to either of you.”
“Brad Porter is in debt,” Pop Syad said quickly, pressing into the silence before I managed to turn off my phone. I put it back to my ear. “Large amounts of debt. That’s why he took money from me to stay with you while your mother spent time during the last years in and out of various rehabilitation facilities.” He sighed. “I feel as though I’ve tried every one in Europe.”
I stopped walking, my mouth dropping open. “But her partying, I saw her…”
“I wanted to tell you, but she was ashamed. It’s been a downward spiral. She’d finish treatment, and Brad would pull something terrible. I’ve been trying to get her to divorce him for years. Her health is his fault. Finally, she’s seen reason. The only way to get well is to cut out the tumor.”
“The women,” I said, my tone flat.
“She’s trying to get clean for you. She told me she made you a promise before her last trip. She promised to get clean and spend time with you.”
“She failed.”
“Alcoholism is a disease, Nash. One that needs to be monitored.”
“It’s not just alcohol, though, is it?” I asked.
He sighed. “No, it isn’t. She struggles with all substances.”
“And sex,” I said, hating the words.
My head swam. I didn’t know what to think, what to do. So much had changed. In less than a day, I’d learned sordid, terrible truths about my mother, lost my father… My grandfather’s illness loomed large. This was how Aya felt every day, I realized—a sick fear that everything she understood and knew would soon be gone, that everything she wanted would be ripped from her.
“I need you to go with Steve, no matter your current anger with him,” Pop Syad insisted.
“I don’t want—”
“I know that. I know you’re an adult. I know I can’t force you to do anything. But you’re also the heir to my fortune, and your parents just dropped one of the biggest stories to hit the media this decade. Their divorce is going to be a shitshow. Brad will make sure of it. So please, until this settles down, please stay with Steve.”
I heard the door downstairs click open. If Mrs. Didri-Aldringham was sleeping, I didn’t want to wake her.
“Fine, but I don’t want to see you or my mother.”
Not that I expected her to come home. Why now, after all this time? I needed to process this. Fuck, I needed Aya.
I didn’t bother to say goodbye as I hung up and headed down the stairs toward Steve’s hulking form. He latched his large paw around my biceps, letting me know I wasn’t leaving his sight anytime soon.
Just fucking great.
25
Aya
When Mrs. Ombly returned, she led me to the closest waiting room and wrapped my fingers around a Styrofoam cup of tea. I held it, staring at the ill-fitted tiles on the floor as I sank into a chair.
“Would you like your phone, Miss Aya? Maybe Nash could come sit with you.”
“Sure,” I murmured, my voice hoarse. My throat ached with unshed tears. I took the device from her, clicked on the screen, and gasped. The tea fell from my hand, splattering my sandals and foot with hot liquid. But I didn’t feel it. Not then. Not as my gaze roamed over the many lines of text Nash had sent me—begging me to respond, saying he needed me.